The place? Essex, MD. The company? Tessemae’s All Natural salad dressing and condiment company. Founded by brothers Greg, Brian, and Matt Vetter, the company launched in 2009. The company’s products are sold in many retail stores across the country.

You might wonder where we might be going with this information. Certainly doesn’t look like an opener for thermal printers. We insist though, it definitely is!

The story begins with Tessemae’s bottle labels and sachets. Until recently, they used thermal transfer overcoat equipment to code their “Best by Date” codes. In early 2015, things changed. The Veritiv Corporation introduced Tessemae to thermal ink-jet printing. Thermal printing is a cost-effective, low maintenance alternative to the coding method that had been in place since the company’s inception. Once Tessemae realized that thermal printers offered a cost-effective option, they implemented this technology for both their packaging lines.

Tessemae installed Veritiv-supplied iJet for its bottle filling line. iJet is an independently operating thermal ink-jet print head from AT Information Products. What’s amazing is that the thermal printer prints Best By Dates at speeds of up to 40 per minute on high-gloss labels. They are then applied to Tessemae’s salad dressing bottles.

We get it – the printer is amazingly fast… does it, however, save on costs?

“The vf/f/s pouch line is now equipped with ATIP’s X4Jet print controller with two single ATIP Autoprint print heads that print on four pouches simultaneously. Pouches measure 3 x 5.5 in. and are constructed of 48-ga PET/four-color print/adhesive/0.025-mil EVOH LLDPE. Using solvent-based ink, the print heads add Best By codes to the preprinted sachet rollstock at 160/min.”

Both the iJet and X4Jet are programmed using ATIP’s iDesign software for label formats and database connections.

Additionally, Tessemae has realized a 60 percent savings on bottle label coding. Matt Vetter, one of the key founders of Tessemae has noted that this printing has increased the company’s uptime, and improved quality of the printing on its labels and sachets.

Matt Vetter owes it all to the paradigm shift in technology. Better printing and greater savings are definitely the key features of thermal printers.

Thermal printing has a new variant on the block, and it is called Insta-print. So what is Insta-print? Instant print? Nah! Insta-print is a thermal printer sitting in the corner, connected to the Internet and searching for your Instagram hashtag. Did we just say hashtag? Yes! Hashtag is the key here. This unique printer searches for pictures using Instagram hashtags. For instance, if you have photos of an important event all grouped under a custom hashtag, you can use the printer to search for the hashtag. What happens next is that it instantly starts printing real-world pictures.

The company that owns this cool new printer is also called “Hashtag.” And Hashtag’s thermal printer just takes seconds to find a photo online using a hashtag, warms up and spews out the photo. Cool? We think so too!

Digitaltrends also noted that, the share-to-print time was less than 20 to 30 seconds in total. They further added,

“Plus, the printer was starting cold, and once it’s up to temperature at an event, each picture emerges in about 11 seconds.”

To begin with the prints are sized at 6 x 4 inches and will soon move on a smaller dimensions. The idea is to eventually print photos that are small enough to carry around in a wallet. These mementos will truly capture your unique moments, instantly.

So how big is this printer? Pictures show that this printer is quite big. On the contrary, the printer is set up on a plinth, with the box on top holding the actual printer and a Windows tablet. The modem inside is versatile and connects to Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G LTE.

And how economical is the printing? If the reports are to be believed, this thermal printer can easily print up to 300 pictures on one single cartridge and a single batch of paper.

Andrew Theodore, Hashtag’s Director told digitaltrends that this printer is the just the prototype for the ten printers coming this summer. Since the company’s inception in April last year, it has garnered sufficient curiosity to have all of its lease slots booked for this year. The thermal printer offers to be a cool addition to your party, printing photos instantly. However, if you are looking to hire this printer for your party, you are looking at a $1,360 cost.

Costly? Maybe! But from a brand looking to go viral with its promotions, this is a small price to pay.

Over 80 million photos are uploaded to Instagram everyday. Think of it this way, Hashtag wins in terms of making insta-memories and we get more than just a picture shared on Instagram. We get that picture instantly in hand with Insta-print.